'Blood money' frees American in Pakistan

WASHINGTON - Pakistan abruptly freed the CIA contractor who shot and killed two men in a gunfight in Lahore after a deal was sealed Wednesday to pay "blood money" to the men's families. The agreement, nearly seven weeks after the shootings, ended a tense showdown with a vital U.S. ally that had threatened to disrupt the war on terrorism.

In what appeared to be a carefully choreographed conclusion to the diplomatic crisis, a U.S. official said Pakistan had paid the families whose pardoning of Raymond Davis set the stage for his release. That arrangement allowed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to assert in a news conference the U.S. didn't pay compensation.

But the American government "expects to receive a bill at some point," said the official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because the situation was so sensitive. The payments to families in Pakistan are roughly 400 times as high as the U.S. has paid to families of many civilians wrongfully killed by U.S. soldiers in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Raja Muhammad Irshad, a lawyer for the families, said 19 male and female relatives appeared in court to accept the $2.34 million. He said each told the court "they were ready to accept the blood money deal without pressure and would have no objection if the court acquitted Raymond Davis." The practice, which comes from Islamic law, is common and legal in Pakistan, though criticized by human-rights groups.

Separately, one Pakistani official said the sum was just under twice that total, while other news organizations cited anonymous sources to report the amount was between $700,000 and $1.4 million.

Under negotiations to free Davis, the U.S. Embassy in Lahore said the Justice Department had opened an investigation into the Jan. 27 shootings. In a statement, the embassy thanked the families for their generosity in pardoning Davis but did not mention any money changing hands.

The arrangement deliberately bypassed the question of whether Davis was immune from prosecution because of diplomatic status, the official said. That had been a central legal issue in the case, but by negotiating Davis' release under Islamic sharia law the issue could be resolved outside the jurisdiction of the police and court system that arrested and held him on suspicion of murder.

Davis, 36, left the country immediately for Kabul in neighboring Afghanistan, where he was expected to be debriefed extensively about his time in custody, Pakistani and American officials said.

Davis said he had acted in self-defense when he killed the two men on the street in the eastern city of Lahore. The U.S. government initially described him as either a U.S. consular or embassy official, but officials later acknowledged he was working for the CIA. He was working as a security contractor in Lahore.

The State Department had insisted Davis was covered by diplomatic immunity.

Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said Davis was actually charged with murder Wednesday in a court that was convened in a prison in Lahore, but was immediately pardoned by the families of the victims after the payment.

"This all happened in court and everything was according to law," he said. "The court has acquitted Raymond Davis."

Clinton, in Cairo, denied the U.S. had made any payments, but she didn't dispute that the men's families were compensated.